Sooners film study: John Mateer’s horrendous game in Red River against Texas provides plenty of important lessons for improvement
What went wrong for John Mateer and the Oklahoma Sooners in Red River against the Texas Longhorns?
The Oklahoma Sooners felt confident heading into their Red River matchup against the Texas Longhorns, riding high on an elite defense and the news that quarterback John Mateer would return from injury and play against Texas.
The defense showed up. Mateer, on the other hand, did not. In fact, it’s fair to say that his play actively cost Oklahoma their shot at finally pulling out a win in this bitter rivalry. This wasn’t a case of his thumb affecting him either, he admitted as much postgame. No, Mateer made mistakes running the offense, and they were simple, basic mistakes he needs to learn from moving forward.
Let’s dive in.
John Mateer against Texas
Lesson #1: Take care of the football, man
Interception #1
This was both a fantastic play by Texas cornerback Malik Muhammad and an absolutely dreadful play by Mateer. His lack of awareness and processing on a basic play against a very basic coverage immediately sent alarm bells off in my head during the game, and it was even worse going back through the film.
It’s the first quarter of the game with roughly 3:37 left in the quarter, the Sooners are up 3-0 and looking to keep the momentum rolling and potentially go up two scores on Texas.
Oklahoma is running a simple four verts playcall. As straight up as it gets in the passing game, you and I have been calling that in Madden and CFB games for our entire lifetimes. It’s a fantastic call here, as it catches Texas in a simple cover 3 look.
The Texas corners play the deep thirds, but Jaren Kanak blowing by the flat defender at the bottom for Texas immediately draws the deep safety over. That leaves Isaiah Sategna running the middle vertical wide open for an easy walk-in touchdown. A touchdown here would have put the Sooners up 10-0. Instead, Mateer stares down Kanak and coughs up a chalupa that gets picked off. Texas luckily missed a field goal, but it gave them a short field to work with and almost tied the game early.
Interception #2
This one is just as egregious as the first and even more costly. Oklahoma flubs the clock management on the final drive before half, but still moves the ball down the field enough to put them in field goal range just before halftime.
Here, they just try and take a shot for the end zone just before halftime, with roughly ten seconds left on the clock. The two wide receiver to the top run deep post routes, while the tight end runs a corner route to the pylon.
This is one where Mateer just has to know the situation. He’s late to the throw and forces the deep inside post to Burks, who never really gets open on the concept. Right before halftime in field goal range, he has to understand he can and should just throw this away. Instead, he lobs it up to Texas, and the Sooners lose out on a chance to go up 9-3 with some momentum before halftime, and things spiraled out from there.
Mateer simply has to take better care of the ball moving forward. He also had two turnover-worthy plays on the first drive right out of halftime as well that could have made things even worse.
Lesson #2: Follow. The. Playcall.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand when watching quarterbacks, it’s them messing up the play design through either a willingness to not adjust post-snap and locking onto a read or simply running the play poorly. Mateer does both on a few instances against Texas, and it results in either near interceptions (again) or missing what could have been game-changing plays.
Here in this first one, OU is lined up in a 2×2 formation out of 11 personnel, and the play call is a fairly simple one. All four receivers are running a curl route (all curl).
When the ball is snapped, Mateer immediately looks far side (furthest place to complete a pass from his drop), and you can immediately see what he probably thinks the coverage is. The flat defender from Texas immediately bolts for the slot receiver, and Mateer thinks it’s man or man-match coverage.
As it turns out, it was not.
What it was was instead zone coverage, and the Texas defender ends up right where the ball is with the outside receiver after colliding with and re-routing the slot receiver. Had the defender turned his head, I feel pretty confident he is either picking that pass off or breaking it up. Instead, it’s an ugly catch on the sideline that gets his receiver sandwiched between two defenders.
In my opinion, this play would have been better served going to the boundary on the short side of the play. It’s closer, so the ball can get there faster and with better timing on the route, and there’s less time for a defender to close on the ball. Mateer drives this to the furthest possible receiver, and to make matters worse, he’s late to do so by just a tick. If he is going to try it, the ball should be out at the bottom of his drop. It’s not a costly mistake, but it’s one of the little ones that add up over a game.
On this play, the Sooners are calling a designed rollout look in what looks like an attempt to open up the deep post shot over the top. The Sooners are down 13-6 right at the start of the 4th quarter and are fresh off of a 21-yard pass to end the third that gave them some momentum. It’s still a one score game at this point.
I don’t think this was necessarily the greatest play call against single-high, but the play was there to be made. This play looks eerily similar to one Lincoln Riley popularized with Dede Westbrook and Hollywood Brown with the deep post stretching the defense vertically after a play action rollout. If this play is similar, then the deep post is likely the spot where this is supposed to go, and Mateer should just rip the throw.
Instead, he rolls out…and rolls out…and then tucks it and runs it. He completely messes up the rollout! This play should be a half rollout but because he’s still rolling out, the timing of it is all off. On top of that, he’s now invited the entire Texas secondary over to the same side where all of the other routes are, clogging up traffic in front of him, so he has to scramble for little gain. What could have been a big play (even if it likely would have been a tough throw) has these little details messed up and ends up going for nothing.
For the final play here, I want to talk about what feels like his biggest gaffe so far as a Sooner. Situationally, It’s 20-6 with 7:10 left in the ballgame, which is plenty of time for a potential comeback.
Once more, OU is in a 2×2 look. The receivers to the top run a post-dig combination, but it’s the receivers to the bottom we should pay attention to here. Jer’Michael Carter and Kaden Helms run a switch release, with Helms running a wheel, and Carter running straight inside and pushing vertically.
Look how wide open Carter gets on this play. Carter can walk in for a touchdown if Mateer ever gets his eyes over to him. In the wise words of Tom Brady, “If the safety walks down, just rip the seam”.
Instead…Mateer locks onto the dig at the top and throws it in between three defenders for…no reason. I can’t think of a justifiable reason this would have ever been his read pre-snap and especially not post-snap. That’s the robber, man, you’re supposed to be looking him off, not right into the ball. That’s another turnover-worthy play.
That mistake cost the Sooners six points, as he took two sacks and threw an incompletion on 4th down, and effectively cut out any hope for a comeback.
It’s frustrating mistakes like these that have littered Mateer’s film all season and cut off any hope the Sooners had of winning this game. Thumb injury or not, these were mental mistakes that simply should not be happening, but they are. These mistakes simply cannot keep repeating like they have throughout the season, and especially can’t happen to the degree they did against Texas, if Oklahoma wants to make it into the College Football Playoff.
I confess that I am a little concerned these mistakes haven’t been addressed yet in his second year in the system after his Washington State film was littered with similar misses. That’s on offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and quarterbacks coach John Kuceyeski. The most worrying part is that these mistakes were part of Cam Ward’s game before he transferred to Miami, a fact that gnaws at my brain regarding the development going on here between these two.
Overall, I feel confident that if Mateer plays even at an average level, Oklahoma walks out of Dallas with a win over their rival, feeling good about their chances for a College Football Playoff run. Instead, we got…that, and the optimism around the program has plummeted. It can’t happen again.
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